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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

It was an "American Idol" first. The night someone was to be voted off... someone got saved instead.

Jennifer Hudson makes her return to "American Idol," they show some clips first -- wonder if they'll show the ones of Simon telling her to lose weight. Nope.

She does one movie (“Dreamgirls”) — and wins an Oscar.

She records one CD (“Jennifer Hudson”), with only one hit single at that point — and wins a Grammy.

Well, if skeptics were thinking that the movie and music industries had made 27-year-old Hudson a star before she really earned it, all they had to see was one show: Last night’s concert at the Fox Theatre.

She's come a loooong way from when she got cut (early) from Season Three; I'm really happy Idol gave someone like her the chance to make it big, she's one of the most talented and graceful contestants the show's ever had.

Hudson is a wonder. And not just because it is remarkable that she is out in front of audiences mere months after her mother, brother and nephew were killed.

But because on the first night of her two-night stand in Atlanta - the second show being Thursday- this relative newcomer arrived with an ease with the audience that never let on that this is her first tour ever. She has a command of not only her own rather ordinary R&B material, but such greats as Aretha Franklin’s (“Something He Can Feel”), Chaka Khan’s (“Sweet Thing”) and Whitney Houston’s (“You Give Good Love”). And most spectacularly, every song she sang seemed to effortlessly emanate from this much older, wiser core layered with gospel heft and Broadway delivery.

Hudson wasn’t much about on-stage banter during her near hour-long set. But it was clear from the standing ovation the ever-slimmer talent got before her first song (“One Night Only” from “Dreamgirls”) to her bare-footed encore (of course, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” also from “Dreamgirls”) that she connected with the three-fourths full theater.

Comes out all in black; audience is totally quiet as she launches into "If This Isn't Love." There's deep power in her voice that only comes from life experience; she owns the stage and the audience, as she hits the high notes it's really an electric moment.

She did not win the show, but Hudson has clearly proven to be the most successful person to come out of the FOX reality series.Hudson performed a song from her latest CD, as did Disney starlet Miley Cyrus.